This section was researched and written by Susan Hurley-Glowa, PhD, a native
of Potsdam and ethnomusicologist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Traditional Adirondack Music today is based primarily on a melding of styles brought from New England, the British
Isles, and Canada. However, people from many other places have made the North Country their homes, including its
first people from Native American communities. In most cases they had their own
secular and sacred musical traditions.
However, these other traditions are not well represented in existing
documentation for a variety of reasons.

In some cases, the musical styles were simply forgotten over time because the communities were too small to sustain
them. In other cases, the communities
may have deliberately chosen to let go of ties to their past, adopting new
styles from the people around them.
While there is more to be learned about traditions in the North Country’s
ethnic communities, several are clearly “living music cultures,” families and
communities in which ethnic music-making still constitutes an important part of
their heritage and identities.